


Will the Last One Out Please Shut the Door

by dinglehorton



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Murder, Not Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:06:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1240801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinglehorton/pseuds/dinglehorton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end there’s nothing left for him to bail out anyways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Will the Last One Out Please Shut the Door

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: implied suicide, MAJOR character death, semi-graphic detail of murder, not a happy ending, (if there are any other warnings I should add, please let me know, but read at your own risk) un-beta'd.

They are just two sinking ships passing in the night. Stiles likens them to two different Titanics, two equally ill-fated ships biding their time in the murky waters of Beacon Hills. Stiles wonders who will sink first; if Stiles were a betting man it'd be him, but Derek _is_ equally as self-destructive. Still, he secretly hopes that Derek will somehow find the peace he's looking for; has been looking for since he was a teenager and his own family perished around him. They're already taking on water and the feeling that he's drowning takes over Stiles again, but instead of bailing himself out he does his best to protect his friends and family first. Because if this Nogitsune is going to take him down then he needs to do everything in his power to protect those who will still be here once the Nogitsune is dead.

 

In the end there’s nothing left for him to bail out anyways. The Nogitsune slits Allison’s throat wide open in front of Scott and strings Stiles’ father up by his intestines from a tree in the middle of the woods. They don’t find Lydia until two weeks after they find his father, hanging the exact same way. Scott’s eyes are dull and don’t shine nearly as bright as they used to, like he’s already dead without actually _being_ dead. Stiles can tell that a part of Scott will always blame Stiles even though it was the Nogitsune who was really at fault. By the time they manage to kill the Nogitsune and get the _real_ _Stiles_ back he has nothing left to come back to. Almost everyone he loves is dead because of him. Derek and Scott eventually stop trying to convince him that they don’t hate or blame him, because at some point it starts to sound contrived and rehearsed. Of course they don’t blame _him_ but they can’t help that it was his face that destroyed so many innocent lives.

 

Stiles likes to think that they would have had a chance at one point. That maybe he and Derek could have figured things out together and made a real relationship work. It’s the last thing he thinks about, sitting with his back pressed against his father’s headstone, his father’s hand gun laying across his outstretched legs. He thinks about all the things that could have been if it wasn’t for the Nogitsune and the darkness that had consumed his mind. They probably could have made it, made _them_ , work.

 

Maybe.

 

 

Scott howls when he finds him at his dad’s grave because even through everything Stiles was still his best friend, still his brother from another mother. They’d been through divorces and deaths and puberty together. Stiles had comforted Scott when his dad left, and Scott had been there when Stiles’ mom died. They’d shared years of sleepovers and movie nights and he couldn’t just forget all of that.

 

Derek sits perched on the Stilinski roof just outside of Stiles’ window, listening to Scott mourn in the distance. He can’t howl in return when he opens his own mouth, but he can feel the warm tears dropping down the side of his face. He can feel when Isaac shows up next to him, wordlessly dropping a hand onto Derek’s shoulder and squeezing in a show of support. They sit there for hours.

 

He wonders briefly if things would have been different if Peter had never given Scott the bite. He knows everything, including Peter, would have been different had he never trusted Kate. He knows that this started with him, that he’s to blame for everything that’s happened in the last two years. He wonders what would have changed and what would have stayed the same; how their lives would be now if there were no werewolves, tricksters, or darkness. He supposes that he’ll never really know for sure either way.

 

He passes the Stilinski Memorial Highway sign on his way out of town the next morning and doesn’t look back as he passes the “come back soon” sign at the edge of Beacon Hills. Derek isn’t sure where he’s going to go, but he doesn’t plan to stay in any one place for too long. He won’t risk getting attached to another person from a small town with hazel eyes and pale skin.


End file.
